Leonard Pitts, Jr. Hosts May 2012 Blacklitchat

Twitter Book Club Discussion: FREEMAN

Join us for our #blacklitchat Twitter party. We are excited and honored that Leonard Pitts, Jr. is our May host for this chat. We will be discussing his novel, FREEMAN (Agate, May 2012).

In a career spanning more than 35 years, Leonard Pitts, Jr. has been a columnist, a college professor, a radio producer and a lecturer. But if you ask him to define himself, he will invariably choose one word.  He is a writer, period, author of one of the most popular newspaper columns in the country and of a series of critically-acclaimed books, including his latest, a novel called FREEMAN. And his lifelong devotion to the art and craft of words has yielded stellar results, chief among them the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for commentary. Visit him at http://www.leonardpittsjr.com

FREEMAN . .
Freeman is a love story--sweeping, generous, brutal, compassionate, patient--about the feelings people were determined to honor, despite the enormous constraints of the times. At the center of the novel is a love story. Sam Freeman, a liberated slave, embarks on a 1,000-mile journey to Mississippi in search of his wife Tilda. As Sam travels through the South, he encounters many different stories: slaves who are searching for their families, masters who won't give loved ones back and slaves who are killed on their way out of the South. Although the novel is set against the tumultuous backdrop of post-Civil War America, Pitts says, he wrote a love story to reveal the indelible strength of African-Americans during a time of oppression.

"Leonard Pitts has a passion for history and a gift for storytelling. Both shine in this story of love and redemption, which challenges everything we thought we knew about how our nation dealt with its most stubborn stain." —Gwen Ifill, PBS, author of The Breakthrough

"Post-Civil War America is fertile ground for novelists, but few have tilled it with such grace and majesty as Leonard Pitts. In Freeman, Pitts weaves a beguiling, cinematic love story against a rich tapestry of American history, evoking unforgettable characters in a narrative that could easily replace a shelf of textbooks. What a splendid read!" —Herb Boyd, co-editor of By Any Means Necessary—Malcolm X: Real, not Reinvented

"Leonard Pitts, Hr. crafts a novel as well as the great storytellers of our time. Freeman captured my attention from the very first sentence and my heart throughout. Sam and Tilda will stay with me for a very long time. I can't let them go." —Sybil Wilkes, The Tom Joyner Radio Show

"I fell in love with Leonard Pitts Jr.'s fiction with Before I Forget. Now he's out with a new one, Freeman....It's a beautiful book, and I highly recommend it." —Carleen Brice, White Readers Meet Black Authors blog

Join us this Sunday, May 20, 2012 at 9PM ET to chat LIVE  here.www.twebevent.com/blacklitchat

MARTHA SOUTHGATE APRIL 2012 BLACKLITCHAT

 

Twitter Book Club Discussion: TASTE OF SALT

Join us for our #blacklitchat Twitter party. We are excited and honored that Martha Southgate is our April host for this chat. We will be discussing her novel, TASTE OF SALT(Alonquin, September 2012).

Martha Southgate is the author of four novels. Her newest, The Taste of Salt, published by Algonquin Books, is in stores and available for pre-order now. Her previous novel, Third Girl from the Left, won the Best Novel of the Year award from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association and was shortlisted for the PEN/Beyond Margins Award and the Hurston/Wright Legacy award. Her novel The Fall of Rome received the 2003 Alex Award from the American Library Association and was named one of the best novels of 2002 by Jonathan Yardley of the Washington Post. She is also the author of Another Way to Dance, which won the Coretta Scott King Genesis Award for Best First Novel. She received a 2002 New York Foundation for the Arts grant and has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the Bread Loaf Writers Conference. Her July 2007 essay from the New York Times Book Review, "Writers Like Me" received considerable notice and appears in the anthology Best African-American Essays 2009. Previous non-fiction articles have appeared in The New York Times Magazine,O, Premiere, and Essence. Please visit her at http://www.marthasouthgate.com/.

TASTE OF SALT. . .
Josie Henderson loves the water and is fulfilled by her position as the only senior-level black scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. In building this impressive life for herself, she has tried to shed the one thing she cannot: her family back in landlocked Cleveland. Her adored brother, Tick, was her childhood ally as they watched their drinking father push away all the love that his wife and children were trying to give him. Now Tick himself has been coming apart and demands to be heard. Weaving four voices into a beautiful tapestry, Southgate charts the lives of the Hendersons from the parents’ first charmed meeting to Josie’s realization that the ways of the human heart are more complex than anything seen under a microscope.

[A] searing, gorgeous, brilliant and profoundly human novel about two generations of an African American family riding the slow-mo roller coaster of addiction.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“In The Taste of Salt, Southgate writes with a minor-key melancholy that comes on softly, but lingers long after.”—Entertainment Weekly

“Southgate’s arresting, fluid prose and authentic dialogue come together in a resonating study of relationships, where selfish tendencies among the various characters are revealed, as are their feelings of regret. A fascinating story that shows how the mistakes people make affect all those around them.”—Publishers Weekly

Join us this Sunday, April 22, 2012 at 9PM ET to chat LIVE  here. www.twebevent.com/blacklitchat

Aliya S. King hosts March #blacklitchat

Twitter Book Club Discussion: DIAMOND LIFE

Join us for our #blacklitchat Twitter party. We are excited and honored that Aliya S. King is our March host for this chat. We will be discussing her sophomore novel, DIAMOND LIFE(Gallery, February 2012).
Aliya S. King is an award-winning journalist and the author of PLATINUM and DIAMOND LIFE. She is the co-author of Original Gangster and the New York Times bestseller Keep the Faith. Her work has appeared in Vibe, Giant, Uptown, Essence, King, Ms., Us Weekly, and Teen People, among others. Please visit her at www.aliyasking.com.

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR . . .
Set in the highest ranks of the music industry’s fame machine, Diamond Life is an intoxicating story of love, sex, ambition, money, betrayal, and the surprising realities of making it big.
Alex Maxwell’s career as a journalist and celebrity ghost writer is taking off, despite the slightly embarrassing authorship of hip-hop super-groupie Cleo Wright’s memoir. And while Alex’s star is on the rise, it pales in comparison to her husband Birdie’s multiplatinum debut and world tour. Slowly but surely, everything they swore would never happen begins to come true, like leaving Brooklyn for a mansion in suburban Jersey and letting a reality TV crew into their home. Birdie is confronted time and again by the sexy groupies who pursue famous rappers like heat-seeking missiles and he’s forced to make some life-changing choices.
Meanwhile, aging rapper Z, in recovery from drug addiction, is too busy trying to repair his marriage to leave much time for his son Zander, newly signed to Z’s label and struggling to maintain his appeal in the wake of a domestic violence scandal with his diva girlfriend Bunny.
Record label president Jake is trying to deal with the death of his wife, multiplatinum R&B artist Kipenzi Hill, by drowning his sorrows in alcohol and women. When he meets Lily, a beautiful, quiet waitress, he can’t get her out of his head. But Lily has her own problems to handle and she wants nothing to do with the fame, drama, and baggage that Jake carries with him.
This juicy follow-up to Aliya S. King’s Platinum is a scintillating roman à clef that takes readers behind the curtain once again for the real scoop on the biggest players in the hip-hop game—and the first ladies who hold them together.
What they are saying…
In this atmospheric follow-up to 2010’s Platinum, entertainment journalist King continues the saga of her hip-hop moguls (and the women who love them) that she started inPlatinum… the author’s journalism experience with Vibe, Essence, and other publications lends an authentic air. Readers will enjoy guessing which real-life celebrity dramas might match their fictional counterparts. A solid page-turner.”
-- Publishers Weekly


Join us this Sunday, March 25, 2012 at 9PM ET to chat LIVE  here.

Jacqueline Luckett February Host #BLACKLITCHAT

Twitter Book Club Discussion: PASSING LOVE

Join us for our #blacklitchat Twitter party. We are excited and honored that Jacqueline Luckett is our February host for this chat. We will be discussing her sophomore novel, PASSING LOVE(February 2012).

Jacqueline worked in sales for Xerox for twenty years. During that time she married, raised a family and took creative writing classes where she reignited her love of writing. In 2004, Jacqueline formed the Finish Party (featured in O Magazine, October 2007) along with seven other women writers-of-color. The group provides strong support for each other's writing, good meals, friendship and fun. Since then Jacqueline has written two novels, Jacqueline is the author of two novels, PASSING LOVE and SEARCHING FOR TINA TURNER.

Nicole-Marie Handy has loved all things French since she was a child. After the death of her best friend, determined to get out of her rut, she goes to Paris, leaving behind a marriage proposal. While there, Nicole chances upon an old photo of her father-lovingly inscribed, in his hand, to a woman Nicole has never heard of. What starts as a vacation quickly becomes an investigation into his relationship to this mystery woman.

Moving back and forth in time between the sparkling Paris of today and the jazz-fueled city filled with expatriates in the 1950s, Passing Love is the story of two women dealing with lost love, secrets, and betrayal...and how the City of Light may hold all of the answers.

“Luckett weaves a fascinating portrait of women of color who defy family and tradition to follow love and chase success.”- Publishers Weekly

"Luckett is a writer to watch and admire."—ZZ PACKER, author of Drinking Coffee Elsewhere

Join us this Sunday, January 22, 2012 at 9PM ET to chat LIVE  here.

Bernice McFadden January 2012 #Blacklitchat Host

 

Twitter Book Club Discussion: Gathering of Waters

Join us for our first #blacklitchat Twitter party of 2012. We are excited and honored that Bernice McFadden is out host for this chat. We will be discussing her fantabulous new novel, Gathering of Waters (January 2012)

BERNICE L. McFADDEN is the author of seven critically acclaimed novels including the classics Sugar and Glorious, which was featured in O, The Oprah Magazine, selected as the debut title for the One Book, One Harlem program, and was a finalist for the NAACP Image Award. She is a two-time Hurston/Wright Legacy Award finalist, as well as the recipient of two fiction honor awards from the BCALA. Her sophomore novel, The Warmest December, was praised by Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison as "searing and expertly imagined." McFadden lives in Brooklyn, New York.

GATHERING OF WATERS is a deeply engrossing tale narrated by the town of Money, Mississippi--a site both significant and infamous in our collective story as a nation. Money is personified in this haunting story, which chronicles its troubled history following the arrival of the Hilson and Bryant families.

TASS HILSON AND EMMETT TILL were young and in love when Emmett was brutally murdered in 1955. Anxious to escape the town, Tass marries Maximillian May and relocates to Detroit.

FORTY YEARS LATER, AFTER THE DEATH OF HER HUSBAND, Tass returns to Money and fantasy takes flesh when Emmett Till's spirit is finally released from the dank, dark waters of the Tallahatchie River. The two lovers are reunited, bringing the story to an enchanting and profound conclusion.

GATHERING OF WATERS mines the truth about Money, Mississippi, as well as the town's families, and threads their history over decades. The bare-bones realism--both disturbing and riveting--combined with a magical realm in which ghosts have the final say, is reminiscent of Toni Morrison's Beloved.

Following her best-selling, award-winning novel Glorious, McFadden produces a fantastical historical novel featuring the spirit of Emmett Till.

"The rich text is shaped by the African American storytelling tradition and layered with significant American histories. Recalling the woven spirituality of Toni Morrison's Beloved, this work will appeal to readers of mystic literature."
--Library Journal

"McFadden makes powerful use of imagery in this fantastical novel of ever-flowing waters and troubled spirits."
--Booklist

"As strange as this may sound, Bernice L. McFadden has created a magical, fantastic novel centered around the notorious tragedy of Emmett Till's murder. This is a startling, beautifully written piece of work."
--Dennis Lehane, author of Mystic River

"In her new novel, Gathering of Waters, Bernice McFadden brings her own special vision to the unfortunate story of Emmett Till and his murder in Money, Mississippi. This moving and magical novel, which traces the generations leading up to and away from that horrible night in 1955, drew me in immediately and swept me along through its richly imagined world. I couldn't stop reading, caught up as I was in that enticing place between truth and fantasy, the here-and-now and the what-was, the living and the dead, the ugliness and the beauty, the hatred and the love. What a rich chorus of voices Bernice McFadden has fashioned from this place called Money."
--Lee Martin, author of Break the Skin and The Bright Forever

Join us this Sunday, January 22, 2012 at 9PM ET to chat LIVE with Bernice McFadden about GATHERING OF WATERS here.

Tananarive Due hosts 2011 Best Books #Blacklitchat on Twitter

Join us tonight for our year end #blacklitchat.Tananarive Due is our special host. We will be sharing our best book picks for 2011 and chatting with her about her new novel, My Soul to Take. To get to the online event click here.

Tananarive Due is an American Book Award-winning, Essence best-selling author of Blood Colony, The Living Blood, The Good House,and Joplin's Ghost, and co-author of the NAACP Image Award-winning Tennyson Hardwick mystery series. She lives in the Atlanta area with her husband and co-author Steven Barnes.

more on My Soul to Take:

Essence bestselling and award-winning author Tananarive Due delivers a heart-stopping new novel continuing the story of descendants of an immortal line of people who are the only ones capable of saving the world.

Fana, an immortal with tremendous telepathic abilities, is locked in a battle of wills. Her fiancÉ is Michel. But Johnny Wright, a mortal who is in love with her, believes that if she doesn't stay away from Michel, they will become the Witnesses to the Apocalypse described in the Book of Revelation.

Fana and the Life Brothers are rushing to distribute their healing "Living Blood" throughout the world, hoping to eliminate most diseases before Fana is bound to marry Michel. Still, they cannot heal people faster than Michel can kill them. Due weaves a tangled web in this novel, including beloved characters from her bestselling Joplin's Ghost, in a war of good against evil, making My Soul to Take a chilling and thrilling experience.

NELSON GEORGE host November Blacklitchat

Update: Chat Cancelled.

“There are few people who can put the past seventy years of urban reality into the perspective
of the most recent hip minute like Nelson George. The Plot Against Hip Hop is no exception.
Nelson George braids actual facts and fictional characters flawlessly into a time-tunneled walk
along various developments in this now-megabusiness called hip hop. For those that say they
love hip hop as well as the total legacy it evolved from, it bodes well for them to keep this very
close to their head, heart, and attention.” —Chuck D, Public Enemy
We are pleased to announce that Sunday, November 6, 2011 at 9pm EST  The Plot Against Hip Hop author, Nelson George will be our Special Host for #blacklitchat Tweet Chat on Twitter!!!!!!!!!! So all you fans of Hip Hop Culture and Crime Noir, lets have an online book chat with him.
Who is Nelson George?
Nelson George is one of the first writers to document hip hop culture and is the author of several award-winning books on the subject, including Hip Hop America and The Death of Rhythm & Blues; he also coauthored (with Simmons) Russell Simmons’s autobiography Life and Def. He directed Queen Latifah in the HBO film “Life Support”, and is an executive producer of VH1’s long-running Hip Hop Honors broadcast.
What is The Plot Against Hip Hop?
The Plot Against Hip Hop is a noir novel set in the world of hip hop culture. The stabbing murder of esteemed music critic Dwayne Robinson in a Soho office building is dismissed by the NYPD as a gang initiation. But his old friend, bodyguard/security expert D Hunter, suspects there’s much more to his death. An old cassette tape, the theft of a manuscript Robinson wasworking on, and some veiled threats suggest there are larger forces at work.
D Hunter’s investigation into his mentor’s murder leads into a parallel history of hip hop, a place where renegade government agents, behind-the-scenes power brokers, and paranoid journalists know a truth that only a few hard core fans suspect. This rewrite of hip hop history mixes real-life figures including Jay-Z, Kanye West, and Russell Simmons with characterspulled from the culture’s hidden world, as  Illuminati, FBI agents, and West Coast gangstas roam the hard streets D Hunter walks down.
D Hunter is a tough, black-clad product of crime-ridden Brownsville, Brooklyn, a man whose family has been devastated by violence and who has dedicated himself to protecting people in an age of insecurity. Hunter has his own secrets, his own vulnerabilities, which he fights to overcome as he becomes a reluctant private eye. After reading The Plot Against Hip Hop, you’ll never hear the music the same way.

What Others are Saying about Nelson George?
“Nelson George is one of my greatest influences as a writer . . . He inspired me in many ways,
and he continues to inspire with The Plot Against Hip Hop.” —Talib Kweli
“One of our coolest cultural critics has written a mystery page-turner about the underbelly of
hip hop, and it’s woven with signature whip-smart insights into music. Nelson George’s smooth
security-guard-turned-detective, a.k.a. D, scours a demimonde as glamorous as Chandler’s Los
Angeles. This plot has more twists and turns than a pole dancer, and D definitely needs an
encore—he’s destined to become a classic.” —Mary Karr, author of The Liars’ Club

What is BlackLit Chat?

It's a stream of tweets about books by Black[including Pan-African, African-American, Brit, Caribbean, Canadian Black, etc.] authors in real time during a specified time. Our time  for this chat is Sunday, October 17, 2010 from 7-8 PM EST. Remember it here via Facebook athttp://www.facebook.com/blacklitchat.
How does it Work? 3 Easy Steps

1. Get a Twitter account, or login, or remember your Twitter Password.
   
2. Join the chat by clicking this link.http://twebevent.com/blacklitchat
   
3. Now login with your Twitter Password.
   
4. To join the conversation on October 30, please follow #blacklitchat on Twitter for a conversation moderated by (@BernadetteDavis) and (me) @deegospel. And if you aren't already, follow @nelsongeorge